Gerald waited as the silence stretched out, waiting to see if the girl wit the bass would any other move to acknowledge him or the girl after the latter had introduced herself. He watched as the other girl began to gather up her belongings, make a half-hearted excuse and then hurrying out the door.

The teen felt a slight twinge of guilt at that; maybe he should have spoken up himself since the other girl clearly wasn’t going to. But then, even if he did things would still be awkward with the girl with the bass patently ignoring both of them and he wasn’t sure how well he could keep a conversation going by himself. Gerald just didn’t have too much experience talking to people his own age, not counting the other guys on the tack team or his aggressors; either way the conversation was usually followed by some running.

“Guess I should be glad it’s not just me you don’t want to talk to.” Gerald got the feeling it was pointless to keep trying to engage the girl in conversation. If she hadn’t broken and said something yet she probably wasn’t going to. Besides, the hallway was probably clear by this point and Gerald could be doing something more productive with his time than sitting in uncomfortable silence with a girl he didn’t know.

That said, Gerald had never been smart enough to just back down before and he wasn’t about to learn that lesson right now.

“I have to say though, what you’re doing is a little rude. If you want to be alone that’s fine but just come out and say it; it would be a lot better than this passive/aggressive silence you’re using.”